The invention relates to a method of storing and picking individual articles and/or packaging units in a storage system.
In modern central warehouses for supplying retailers, the goods are supplied on pallets and are intermediately stored on trays once they have been depalletized and separated into individual articles and packing units. For a corresponding order, the required articles and packing units are then retrieved from the warehouse and are supplied in a sorted or sequenced fashion to a picking station, where the individual articles and packing units, in turn, are packed onto pallets or rolling carts for dispatch.
The demands placed upon these storage and picking systems are high. For instance, in spite of a broad spectrum of articles, it should be possible to make optimum use of the space in the warehouse and to achieve a large throughput at the picking stations while keeping operating costs as low as possible.
EP 1 698 573 B1 discloses an automated storage system for storing and picking articles and a corresponding method, in which there is provided a device for separating supplied articles into packing units and for transferring them onto trays, a tray store for storing the packing units on the trays, removal-conveyance technology for removal and for provision of the packing units sequenced for loading onto order-load carriers, and a loading station for loading the packing units onto the order-load carriers. Therefore, continuously flat tray-shaped load carriers, so-called trays, are used for transporting and storing all articles or packing units.
DE 10 2009 033 697 A1 discloses a method for storing and picking articles in the form of individual articles and/or packaging units in a storage system consisting of a pallet racking system for storing articles supplied on incoming goods-load carriers, a device for depalletizing, separating and transferring articles from incoming goods-load carriers to transport-load carriers, a racking system for storing separated articles as an intermediate buffer prior to picking, at least one picking station, in which articles are loaded onto a destination-load carrier, and conveyance technology for transporting separated articles to the racking system and from the racking system to the picking station, wherein transport-load carriers are used for transporting separated articles on the conveyance technology. The method corresponds in this regard to the one above, wherein the only modification thereto is that articles separated in the store are stored without transport-load carriers.
EP 0 776 308 B1 likewise discloses a picking method, in which flat tray-shaped load carriers are continuously used. In the described picking method, distribution units which comprise at least one but preferably several units and are compiled in an article-specific way are compiled into several large units comprising such distribution units, wherein the distribution units are taken from the arriving large units and intermediately stored, whereupon from these intermediately stored distribution units the individual orders are compiled and put into transport containers. The distribution units are each placed one-by-one on a respective goods carrier provided with a code and the data of the distribution unit located on the relevant goods carrier are supplied to a computer and are allocated to the goods carrier receiving this distribution unit and then the goods carriers are inserted into storage containers and are transported with the storage containers and intermediately stored, after which the distribution units of different goods which are each intended for a specific order, together with the goods carriers carrying the same are removed from the storage containers with the help of a computer and inserted into consignment containers and brought with the same to a removal station where they are removed, again with the help of a computer, from the consignment containers according to a predetermined packing order.